The evening was pleasant enough--one saw all the
political men, the marshal's personal friends of the droite went to him
in the first days of his presidency,--(they rather fell off later)--the
Government and Republicans naturally and all the diplomatic corps. There
were not many women, as it really was rather an effort to put one's self
into a low-necked dress and start off directly after dinner to the Gare
St. Lazare, and have rather a rush for places. We were always late, and
just had time to scramble into the last carriage.
I felt very strange--an outsider--all the first months, but my husband's
friends were very nice to me and after a certain time I was astonished
to find how much politics interested me. I learned a great deal from
merely listening while the men talked at dinner. I suppose I should have
understood much more if I had read the papers regularly, but I didn't
begin to do that until W. had been minister for some time, and then
worked myself into a nervous fever at all the opposition papers said
about him. However, all told, the attacks were never very vicious. He
had never been in public life until after the war when he was named
deputy and joined the Assemblee Nationale at Bordeaux--which was an
immense advantage to him.
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